Developing a Vision for Ministry , livre ebook

© 1992, 1999, 2015 by Aubrey Malphurs
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0040-9
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
To my wife and family Susan Mike Jen David Greg
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
Foreword by Haddon W. Robinson 9
Introduction 13
1. It’s a Must! The Importance of a Vision 17
2. What Are We Talking About? The Definition of a Vision 31
3. The Vision Personnel: Giving Birth to Your Vision, Part 1 49
4. The Vision Process: Giving Birth to Your Vision, Part 2 65
5. It’s a Vision! Communicating Your Vision 95
6. Overcoming Initial Inertia: Implementing Your Vision, Part 1 129
7. Overcoming Obstinate Obstacles: Implementing Your Vision, Part 2 149
8. Bittersweet: Preserving Your Vision 177
Appendix: Vision Statements 197
Notes 227
Index 231
Back Ads 235
Back Cover 235
Foreword
In Robert Browning’s poem “Paracelsus” a man travels toward a city, but it is surrounded by swirling mists. He thinks that he must have taken the wrong road and lost his way. But then the mist opens and for an instant he glimpses the spires of the city in the distance. Browning pens the triumphant lines:
So long the city I desired to reach lay hid
When suddenly its spires afar flashed through the circling clouds,
You may conceive my transport,
Soon the vapours closed again, but I had seen the city!
A leader must have vision. We all see the shrouding mists, but leaders have seen the city. Leaders glimpse what others may not see and are captured by it. That’s why they risk everything to reach the city.
Christian leaders do not have dreams in the night. Their visions belong to the day. Those who dream by night in the murky recesses of their minds wake and find their visions vanity; but the dreamers of the day are formidable men and women, for they receive their dreams from God with open eyes and they believe that under God they can turn them into reality.
Since our vision must be God’s vision, we must gain it from the Scriptures. Some devout women and men, however, have taken an unauthentic lead from their commitment to the Bible. They long for “the good old days” of the church when God was alive and well and when he rolled up his sleeves and worked miracles. Their vision amounts to going back to “the New Testament church.”
But which New Testament congregations do they have in mind? These early churches were infested with heretics. Members were at each other’s throats. Some were guilty of sexual sin and many rejected apostolic authority. If our vision lies in a return to a New Testament church, then there’s good news. We’ve already arrived!
Let’s face it. There were no “good old days” for the church. There were no favorable times and no better saints than there are today. While we may learn from the past, we cannot copy it. A vision for the church in the twenty-first century cannot come from going backward into the future.
Our vision must arise from recognizing what the transcendent, contemporary God wants to do for his church and through his church today. Having seen that, leaders can then envision what God will do in the place they serve—the congregation at Fifth and Main in a particular community. Strong leaders possess a vision as great as God and as specific as a zip code.
Leaders also communicate their vision to those who serve Christ with them. John Ruskin spoke of that service when he observed, “The greatest thing a human ever does in the world is to see something and tell others what he saw in a plain way. Hundreds can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly and tell others clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.”
Leaders lift people’s eyes to what matters. By bringing the eternal into time, they summon Christians to a different kind of service, giving them a different perspective. Leaders must not only see the city but must also talk about it in plain words their followers can grasp and that grasp their followers.
Yet, seeing and communicating vision is not magic. Leaders can be better at leading than they are. Aubrey Malphurs has written this helpful, down-to-ministry book that guides a thoughtful reader in developing a vision and inspiring others with it. One sure test of whether or not you are a leader is this: Does a book like this inflame you with indignation or fire your imagination? Leaders with enough imagination to capture reality will wear out this book as they develop a vision for ministry in the twenty-first century.
As Christian leaders we have something in common with Walt Disney. Soon after the completion of Disney World someone said, “Isn’t it too bad that Walt Disney didn’t live to see this!” Mike Vance, creative director of Disney Studios, replied, “He did see it—that’s why it’s here.”
Haddon W. Robinson The Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Introduction
Numerous leaders, whether in the church or the parachurch, struggle in their role as leaders. This is clearly reflected in the fact that Christian institutions across the land have arrived at the twenty-first century exhausted and gasping for breath. Ministering to and leading in today’s world of the church and the parachurch is a leadership-intensive enterprise. Currently nine out of ten American churches are either plateaued or dying with no revival in sight. A considerable number of parachurch organizations are experiencing much the same. Not just anyone can assume leadership under these difficult circumstances.
Some set the number of churched on any given weekend early in the twenty-first century at around 17 percent of the population. To make matters worse, a number of cults and New Age religions, such as Wicca, are both filling the void and attracting some unchurched. Most important, we seem to be losing our youth. Some estimate that as many as 70 percent of young Protestant adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two have stopped attending church regularly. Why are they so important? Not only are they the future of the nation, but they are the future of the church. If the typical church in America were to go to a hospital emergency room, the doctors would be quick to put it on life support.
At the same time, there is hope. A new wind is blowing across the horizon of American Christianity. It is the wind of vision. God is presently infusing a number of new leaders in various Christian organizations across the land with a profound, significant vision for the future. Vision is a word that has been borrowed from the marketplace, but it is also a good biblical concept. It is timely and critical to leaders because vision has the potential to breathe fresh life into them and, thus, into their church or parachurch ministries. In short, there is hope, great hope, for leaders in the twenty-first century.
Vision is one of several critical concepts that have a great impact on a church’s or parachurch’s ministry. The others are core values, mission, and strategy. Figure 1 not only presents them but also shows how they relate to one another. A ministry’s core values dictate why it does what it does. Thus its values will determine the vision. 1 The mission is what the ministry is supposed to be doing. Often the ministry’s vision will be an expansion of its mission. 2 Finally, the strategy involves how a ministry will implement its mission and vision. Without a clear, practical strategy, a ministry will never realize its mission and vision. 3

Vision in terms of ministry exists on both a personal and an institutional level. Personal vision concerns itself directly with the individual leader’s unique design, which helps immensely in determining his or her future ministry direction. It comes as the result of discovering one’s divine design from God. This unique design consists of spiritual gifts, natural talents, passion, temperament, leadership style, and so on. The discovery of personal vision helps Christians in general and leaders in particular determine their future place of ministry within the body of Christ.
Institutional or organizational vision relates directly to the ministry of a particular Christian organization, whether a church or a parachurch. Once leaders have determined their personal vision, they identify with a ministry organization that has an institutional vision most closely aligned with their personal vision. This has several advantages. One is that it lessens the likelihood of ministry burnout. Another is that through aligning with the similar vision of an institution, the leader’s personal vision has a greater impact, because it has the institution behind it.
Both personal and institutional visions are essential. This book is designed to help leaders develop a unique institutional vision for the organization they lead or are a part of. To accomplish this goal it is necessary to take six steps that make up the envisioning process.
The first step is to realize the importance of having a ministry vision. Here th